Tivoli

I went to Tivoli with my Architecture class a couple weekends ago. Tivoli and the Anio River are where the majority of the ancient Roman Aqueducts were sourced from (7 of the 9), as I learned from my archaeology report. Our purpose, rather, was to see the Emperor Hadrian's old, modest ranch house. The most interesting aspect of Hadrian is that he is never simply called Hadrian. It's always "The Emperor Hadrian." Why? There were dozens of emperors. "The Emperor Julius Caesar"? No. Back on track... we also saw the Renaissance Palace which looks straight west towards Rome. When the sun is fading you can see the cupola of St. Peter's against the horizon. But looking east from Gianicolo, you can't really see where Tivoli should be. Quite the mystery. I'm sure a simple 30-second Google search would enlighten us all, but I don't care enough. The palace was charming. By the Renaissance the Romans had learned how to move water much more effectively and were capable of constructing pretty tall fountains. There ain't nothin like water.

There isn't much else to say that the pictures won't describe better.

Hadrian's digs

Sorry... THE EMPEROR HADRIAN'S DIGS

Incredible detail, these guys

His throne. Gimme a break, Hady.

 Italy.

Barbara. Poor woman hurt her knee and couldn't show us around the Renaissance Palace. The word palace, by the way, comes from "Palatine." The old Imperial Palace(s) were located on the Palatine Hill, just a short 10 minutes walk from il mio apartmento. I may start referencing how close things are, not to brag, but for my own benefit. It's weird to be so close to all these ancient, influential places. Well it's weird because I'll be leaving soon. I better not forget this when I'm older.

Rome!

May 19

Woke up late. I went to Villa Pamphili - the massive park and former palace up the hill from me - and read and laid in the sun. Then I walked. I walked for about 3 or 4 hours all in all. The park is huge, plus I got lost. I ended up walking down the same road from 3 months ago when I got lost during "The Snow." Talk about coming full circle...

Tomorrow I'm going to walk around the city and hopefully make it up to the Orange Park on the Aventine Hill. The only hill of the famed seven I haven't been to. If I have time, okay, if I have the motivation, I'll go see the Capitoline Museum. Then I'll come home to a final dinner with the family, pack up, and go to bed so I can get up and meet my family at the airport. 

Exchange rate

If you believe Paul Krugman, the Euro is about to collapse. During my stay it was up to 1.35, during today's trading period it was down to 1.26. It will only go down from here. Time to travel Americans.

May 16

Tomorrow is the final day of the program. Bittersweet. I'll finish my last final at 2 then hurry home to change for the tennis match. Maria Sharapova and Roger Federer play back to back. It should be awesome. Afterwards there has been talk of watching the sunrise over Rome from Gianicolo Hill, maybe see all the famous sites at night - the only true time to see them, well after the crowds are gone. Regardless of the plan, it will be a fantastic capper on the greatest 4 months of my life. La mia famiglia comes in 5 days. It'll be fun to go into tour guide mode and see just how much I learned this semester.

I expect the scene tomorrow night to feel something like this (minus the cops (hopefully))

Roma game

Too lazy to check if I mentioned the Roma game I went to. Well... I went. Lots of fun, lots of drama and lots of angry Italians. One of the cooler sporting events I've been to. Can't live in Europe without going to a soccer match., right?

The Art of Lucking Out Pt. II

Yesterday I woke up without a phone or iPod alarm, both of which are lost or gone forever. Maybe on a beach, maybe in a pocket of some pants on my floor. I woke up with just enough time to get ready and walk to Foro Italico for the Internazionali d'Italia tennis tournament. I could have taken a cab, but it is summer in Rome. So that worked out pretty well. It was a nice hour and twenty minute walk. The majority of the time I was stewing about how the website I bought six Ground tickets off of would not let me print them out, leaving me with just a confirmation sheet. When I got there I was met by Tally, Alex and John Edwards, who played tennis is high school. I know a fair amount about tennis, but he was sort of our tour guide to tennis. I told them we should try to just act like they screwed up the ticket-printing fiasco, which they sort of did, since there were never tickets online to print out. I told the ticket taker in my humorous English/Italian combo that I had tickets but I had to pick them up. I was pointed in the direction of a make-shift ticket office. I could immediately see this ticket office was for sponsors and ATP execs to pick up their VIP passes. I used my skill of "Act like you know what you're doing, and you'll get what you want" to use. The ticket ladies, all of whom undoubtedly worked as models at some point in their life, told me I had to go to the other ticket office. I asked how to get there. One of them said I had to go out the way I came and around the exterior fence. A couple of others chimed in and basically said there was no one checking tickets at the entrance 5 feet from me with a half-wink. So in a way, justice was served. We did pay for our tickets, but instead of having to pay for another set, we waltzed right in. What we found was a much more organized and attractive area than we imagined. In terms of athletic arenas and areas, Foro Italico was pristine. We walked a few hundred metres (not feet, or metERs) to find a pseudo-ancient-statue-lined practice stadium with rows of marbles seats where Maria Sharapova was practicing. One of the most well-known modern WTP tennis players. You've seen her in camera commercials.

We watched hours of world class tennis in the 7 ground courts throughout Foro Italico, including top-100 ranked American Sam Querrey.

The best part about the tournament is the access you get to the courts. The Rome tournament is one of 9 ATP 1000 events in the world. These are the biggest Tennis tournaments besides the 4 Majors (US, French and Australian Opens plus Wimbledon). Of the 9, Rome is usually considered the biggest. It is played on red clay and is the final warm up for the French Open. So there we were at the 5th biggest tennis event of the year, sitting front row, and we didn't even show our tickets. 

After 2 great matches we decided to see who was practicing where Sharapova was previously. We sat down at mid-court in the first row to see the end of two guys finishing their session. Not fifteen minutes had gone by before we saw a guy coming out of the locker room for his session. This guy:

The man in the orange hat is Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest tennis players ever, and THE greatest clay court player ever. As soon as he walked in the mini arena filled up within 2 minutes. People came sprinting over from all around the park. Nadal's practice sessions are more meaningful than almost any other player's real matches. I'm sure the other matches were deserted. (I actually didn't bring my camera, these pictures are Max's.) For the next two hours we saw Rafa practice against David Ferrer. At the beginning of the session, Rafa was the No. 2 tennis player in the world, at the end he was actually No. 3, since Federer had passed him after playing in Madrid. This is pretty much the golden age of tennis. Nadal and Federer are 2 of the top 5 players ever, and the current No. 1, Novak Djokovic, will be up there after a few more years. His fellow sparing partner and fellow Spaniard David Ferrer is no slouch either. He's currently No. 6 in the world. Few people get to see what we saw. We really lucked out.

Ferrer

Our seats

Nadal

The experience was so great that Alex, John, and I bought tickets for the main stadium Thursday night. The winners of the matches will go on to the Quarterfinals. Since the top 4-8 players are so much better than everyone else and always advance to the end, we are nearly guaranteed to see more great tennis.

IES

I remember off-handedly mentioning Barbara (don't want to make their names searchable in this blog) was the only IES instructor I could see teaching at colleges like the University of Illinois. I was very, very wrong. I believe an IES job attracts the best instructors in Rome. It is a very light course load, the brightest  minds usually speak English, and most importantly, the payscale is American not Italian. Italian educators don't get compensated anywhere near their American counterparts.

Barbara indeed could be found at a top US school. She is a regular contributor to La Repubblica, Rome's most prominent newspaper, in the Home & Garden section. She is passionate about architecture, but is an interior decorator and freelance landscape architect.

Gianni, who I have mentioned several times, went to UNC-Chapel Hill to get his BA in the Classics, and somewhere along the line got and MA and Ph.D too, I believe. When the national archaeologists were excavating parts of the Imperial Forum, they called Gianni, the expert, to make sure they were doing it right. He ended up being one of the main excavators in the Forum of Augustus, one of the most famous ancient squares in the world. He spends his summers in Africa and the Middle East excavating ancient Roman civilizations. And he tells a mean story. As I am one of his favorites, I get to hear all of them. There are some doozies.

Efisio was a visiting fellow of economics at Princeton around the time Ben Bernanke was there. He was the head of Italy's council of ministers or something. He played a minor role in Italy's integration into the EU, and created the cirriculum for one of Rome's best public policy programs. I was thrown off at first by his teaching style, but then realized that the course was about economics, not an actual economics course. This is one of those rare instances where someone is actually too qualified for a position. He simply knows too much. He can't lecture for too long without having an anecdote or example that better explains the topic, which then leads to another, and another, and another.

They are all good. I have heard of two other professors that students love and say are brilliant. My Italian instructor is really effective too. She is fantastic at recognizing each students deficiencies, something my two other instructors couldn't do.